The Cutprice Guignol

As we draw in on the finale of Ahsoka’s first season, the show is still struggling to balance pacing with the excellent character work Dave Filoni is bringing us in live-action.

Because, I mean, this episode is just an exquisite collection of character vignettes that I could watch all day. Eman Esfandi gets his first full episode as Ezra, and the joy of seeing him and Sabine together is downright perfect. Their chemistry is immaculate, that sibling-y relationship perfectly captured in their early banter, their love for each other blatant without having to be underlined. I wasn’t entirely convinced about having Ezra survive for a live-action show, but honestly, seeing Esfandi in the role, it’s hard to imagine it without him. He captures that slight smart-assery that’s so charming about the character, and this is the most I’ve liked Natasha Liu Bordizzo as Sabine in the season so far. With her entire arc driven by the search for Ezra, it feels so damn right that she feels at her most settled and confident now she’s finally found him.

And, after pretty much skipping out on last week’s episode, Ahsoka is back with a bang. The version we have of her after the Long, Dark Night of the Jedi Soul is so much more like her characterisation in The Clone Wars, that ballsy, brave, and sparkling screen presence I can’t get enough of, and I love the change compared to the start of the season, with a more subdued Ahsoka. Her patter with Huyang is probably the highlight of the episode for me, and Filoni continues to prove that he should have solo rights on using Anakin, because he just gets how this character work best.

The training recordings we see him through here are a smart way to bring him back without having to get all metaphysical about it (how many deep dives into the subconscious can we have in one season, you know?), and Hayden Christensen fits so well into this version of Anakin, teetering before his fall, but still full of love and care for his apprentice, better than he ever did in the prequel trilogy. Oh, and mentioning Asajj Ventress, stoking the fires of my hope that we’ll get a live-action version of her. There’s a brief moment later in the episode, where Thrawn finally finds out that Ahsoka is Anakin’s apprentice, and his reaction alone is enough to fill out just what kind of stature Anakin has in this universe (which is to say, pure chaos).

And speaking of the Jedi and Jedi-adjacent characters, I have to say a little something about the fighting styles in this episode, which were really outstanding, as they have been all season. We’re dealing with a glut of Force users of various skills here, and the way they use their respective connections to the Force help delineate between them and their standing in their individual power and ability.

You’ve got the well-trained Ezra able to fight with nothing more than his fists and the Force (that shot of him force-bending Shin’s lightsabre had me hollering, let me tell you), veteran Ahsoka confident with both her sabres, and then newbie Sabine relying on a mix of her Mandalorian training and Force sensitivity to survive. Characterising via action isn’t easy, but it’s an incredibly effective way to drive the point home (also, the Noti using slingshots as a callback to Ezra’s weapon of choice in the early Rebels seasons? Scrumptious detail).

Hera has to face up to the Republic after her mission, and I was really pleased with how Dave Filoni handled this – having Leia essentially swing in (via C-3PO) and cover for her to save her from further punishment. The two characters have a lot in common over the course of their respective arcs (read: both generals and mothers with the biggest brass balls in the known universe), and I’d love to see a recast version of Leia working with Hera in the future.

Where the episode wobbles for me is with Baylan (Ray Stevenson, spending about sixty percent of his screentime casting his eye dramatically over some kind of landscape) and his set-up for the season finale next week. He suddenly reveals he’s on an entirely separate mission than the one he claimed to be on, and abandons Shin to go take care of whatever he’s actually there to do. This is really late in the game to introduce such a huge plot point, and I’m not sure the show’s going to have time to satisfyingly wrap it up next week – or even really explore it in meaningful detail, either. It kind of upends the episode a bit, which is a shame, because otherwise I thought this was a pretty strong outing.

Overall, this is an enormously fun episode, and Dave Filoni continues the trend of capturing his characters in live-action as well as he did in animation. I’m just hoping the last episode will balance the storytelling in a more satisfying way than the previous few weeks have.

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Obi-Wan 

 The Mandalorian

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(header image via IGN)